Page - 71 - in ElFo - Elementarpädagogische Forschungsbeiträge, Volume Jahrgang 3 / Heft 1 / 2021

Indicators of educator-child-interaction quality in early childhood education ElFo – Elementarpädagogische Forschungsbeiträge (2021), 3 (1), S. 61-76 71 a child's learning. The inability of an educator to accept strong, negative emotions, or to deal with them in a positive fashion, has a clear negative impact on a child's well-being. The characteristic communicating in a stimulating way is also intriguing. While overall, scores are quite good, there appears to be a qualitative collapse in the aspect using terms. At this age, as the child's language ability is still in its infancy, the naming of things by an educator is highly relevant for the child's future education (Lange & Gogolin, 2010). The construction and use of specific terms are also intrinsically connected to sensory exploration (where some nurseries also gained a low-quality score). Sensory exploration, however, is important in con- cept development and in experiencing conceptual differentiation. Both the development of language and concepts begin with immediate sensory experience. Such experience imbues a concept with meaning, thus enabling the child to progress to the development of related men- tal concepts and abstract terms (Zehnbauer & Jampert, 2009). The data gained from GrazIAS thus provide several well-founded indicators for every early childhood educator wishing to optimize his or her own professional behaviour. The instrument also allows for further possibilities for reflection within the team. As can be seen in the 'Did- EI' (see Figure 1), ideally, the reflection process ideally has a clear effect on future planning and also encourages early childhood educators to incorporate or expand upon knowledge to be able to act in a well-founded manner. Optimal implementation of all steps of the Did-EI improves the quality of interactions. The EIK study, made wider use of the GrazIAS in order to generate scientifically valid, statistical values. The heterogeneous nature of the sample recruited for the study is, to some extent, reflected in the wide quality range of educator-child interaction observed. It can be stated that with the EIK study, a detailed insight into the realised interaction quality in Austrian nurseries was created, although it is rather a small sample. The overall scores found for interaction quality are highly diverse. With respect to the individual quality characteristics, there are always some educators in the sample who achieve a high level of interaction quality, and there are others where there is clearly room for improvement in daily work activities.